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Even though there were heavy fall rates, the near miss of the h7 mega death band is what did it. Despite those heavy fall rates they weren't persistent enough to overcome marginal temps and March sun angle because those rates were driven by the waves of convection coming in from the south shore interspersed by lulls. The storm was dynamic enough to produce TSSN close to the midlevel dry slot and subsidence effects of the death band but that just wasn't enough for NYC. The ingredients being there for extremely intense fgen banding conceptually means expect winners and losers, but it's such a beast to nail that gradient and even the high res CAMs are still not fine enough to do it. With a good cold high to the north it would've been a different story. While NJ and northwest suburbs still would've done best all else being equal, NYC still would've had very good totals considering LE of ~1.25 to 1.5". We had a similar outcome in Chicago area on 2/24/16, most of metro literally just missed the most intense portion of banding on a marginal temp day off to our immediate southeast. Downtown Chicago had 1" of slush on grassy areas while south suburbs in IL had 6-10" and just 25 miles away as crow flies in northwest Indiana they had 15-18" amounts and people needing to be rescued from snow clogged roads. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Long-time lurker in this forum. I'm currently a forecaster at NWS Chicago and got my start in NWS as a SCEP at OKX back in February 2009 and worked there until July 2010. I was born and raised in College Point in Queens. Wanted to offer some of my thoughts on this system. For simplicity purposes, will assume as many think that the GFS and NAM are outliers and use one of the favored models that has an output of prolonged heavy snow for NYC, the 18z RGEM. Despite what this model is showing (particularly qpf and snow output), the H7 low (18z, 21z, 00z attached below) appears unfavorable for prolonged heavy snow over the coastal Plain, including NYC. As you can see, at 18z the h7 low is west of the latitude of NYC and at 21z is over or west of NYC. This path makes it quite likely that the mid-level dry intrusion will surge across these areas. Indeed on soundings on AWIPS, also available on meteocentre site, there is a general saturation issue in the aforementioned hours in the all important -12C to -18C layer, otherwise known as the DGZ. With this in mind, in my view, the model is indicating too much QPF and as a result snow where it is showing the mid-level dry slot. Another worry is that with such close proximity of the low and mid-level low centers is the strength of the WAA aloft which is often underdone and less commonly overdone by the models, which could introduce mixing issues fairly quickly. Conceptually, the RGEM/hi-res RGEM and also Euro which shows a similar h7 low path, looks to support a heavy (possibly very heavy) front end WAA thump where advisory to warning amounts may be met if mixing does not occur too quickly. Thereafter, during a bulk of the afternoon, could be spent with lighter mixed precip under the dry slot. Finally, it appears the comma head (defo axis NW of h7 low) could pay a visit to the area during the evening with a possible return of moderate-heavy snow, though uncertainty on duration of this makes it uncertain how much snow would fall during this time. With all this in mind, the afternoon forecast issued by OKX appears pretty reasonable for NYC and LI and this looks to be a major interior event. Obviously this is a very fluid situation with close attention needing to be paid to observational trends and a very dynamic storm that could have some tricks up its sleeve. For everyone wanting heavy snow in the city and LI above current NWS and NCEP model forecasts, I honestly hope it happens and that I'm wrong, having grown up a snow lover myself starting with blizzards of 93 and 96. But this is how I see things right now (apologies for the length). Also, for the great pros on here, please correct me if I'm wrong on any of the above - always looking to learn from others. Thanks for reading.

Thanks! Made our winter out here. ORD had 18.3" in the record tying 9 consecutive days of measurable snow from 2/3-2/11. Where I live in the southwest suburbs did a bit better with the main event and one earlier in the stretch, so we probably had 20-22" during that 9 days. ORD has had 20.3" on the month after a surprise 2" last Saturday, tying 2007 for 10th snowiest February and 30.3" on the season/30.2" in met winter (normal for whole season is 36.7"). This was after only 10" total through January. Hoping to cash in some in March to get us to above normal for the season. March 2013 and March 1999 are examples of good Marches out here snowfall wise with a -NAO pattern coming out of a Niña or cold neutral met winter.